Every year the Hampshire IT department submits a plan of work to senior administration for review. We would like to share that plan with you and hope to keep you informed as to our progress, via this blog, as we work on this plan. We do get pulled off of projects for minor things like Snowtober and other important needs as they arise, but we try to stay on track. We use results from our student , faculty and staff surveys to inform our plan of work creation process.
Keep in mind that we do have a lot of work that involves supporting the community’s computing needs. This list is simply large projects that may require funding or significant resources above and beyond what we now have; it in no way reflects the entire department’s scope of work. The status of these projects will be updated monthly.
The plan as submitted in August 2011 with status of current projects updated:
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
WEB:
Announcement system changes. Certain shortcomings of the current announcement system were identified during various governance conversations. We have modified the existing on campus announcement system to reflect some changes requested by survey groups. We will make incremental changes to the existing system and examine a total redesign looking forward. Status:Open
Moodle programming, documentation, and modules. As a result of our recent migration to Moodle, a new Learning Management System (LMS), we are continuing to install new features and modules. Further documentation and installation of LMS components will continue throughout the year. Hampshire is part of the Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP). During the summer of 2011, Hampshire hosted the biannual CLAMP Hack/Doc Fest. This included the first-ever CLAMP Documentation Sprint, in which the group focused on revising and publishing the documentation being worked on. Hampshire is very active in the open source community.
Status :Open
Shibboleth Authentication. As part of a Five College project to enable multi-campus login to services, Hampshire has gone into production with Shibboleth authentication. This positions Hampshire to allow Five College students to sign on to our Learning Management System (LMS) with their home institution login information. The other four schools are still in the process of installing Shibboleth, while Hampshire has already launched various on-campus services.
Status: Complete
ePortfolio. We have been exploring the development of an e-portfolio system and ways to better manage documents and video content in our LMS. Research on a Division 3 portfolio project is underway. We expect this work to evolve into a portfolio system for all students. Mahara is an open source ePortfolio system that can be integrated with Moodle LMS. This will allow faculty and students to easily upload, download and manage files within Moodle. We will research and beta test Mahara.
Status :Open
RedDot. Our current Content Management System (CMS) is starting to show signs of age. We are exploring the possibility of moving to a common CMS platform across most of the schools in the Five College Consortium. Drupal CMS is the platform that will most likely be adopted across the Five College community. We have launched a sandbox instance of Drupal and will continue to explore its functionality. Other CMS offerings will be explored as well. Status :Open
Website. As a result of customer feedback, we have been revamping search functions on our web pages for both internal and external customers.
Administrative Systems:
Online Applicant Tracking System. This system has been tested and deployed for staff to assist the community in better managing job searches. Further vetting and expansion of the system will continue. This is rolling out for faculty this year.
Status: Complete
Community Engaged Learning (CEL) for Div 1. The academic program has introduced a new CEL program for Fall 2011. We are developing record keeping, tracking and evaluation functionality.
Status: Open
E-Commerce 4 installation. We have undertaken a PCI compliance review and will install additional software as a result of the survey. Status: Complete
Online Directory. The governance task force held a series of focus group meetings with staff and identified dissatisfaction with the existing online directory as one issue. In response, we plan to do a major redesign this year.
Status: Open
Storage Array Network (SAN). We will continue last year’s work on both virtualization and consolidation of file storage and security. Status: Complete
E-Mail Efficiency. Storage capacity and security remain problematic. This service continues to see exponential growth. To address this and create a sustainable model, we have segmented and totally redesigned our email system. This work will continue this year.
Status: Open
Virtual Computing Lab (Beta). As part of the Five College consortium Davis Grant funded project, we will launch a beta test of a Virtual Computing Lab instance at Hampshire. This will install target software with high computational demand. We plan to offer complex software that demands robust computing platforms to students anywhere, anytime regardless of what personal device the student is using. This is very similar to a thin client model.
Status: Open
OneCard Access. UMass Amherst is currently circulating a Request For Bids (RFB) for a new Card Access system for the Amherst campus. We plan to explore ways to allow Five College students access to facilities and services at all five campuses, solve an access control problem at our athletic facilities that enables us to monitor patrons, and increase card data security. In order to achieve these goals and position, Hampshire will, with regards to the Five College project, be upgrading our card access system and re-carding the entire campus.
- -Upgrade to CCure 9000: Access control system upgrade
- -Change door readers to IClass- entire campus
- -Configure 9000 for IClass
Status: Open
Network and Telcom:
Wireless Access. Our fall 2011 student survey identified wireless access in the dorms as the top student concern. To address this shortcoming, we have deployed wireless access in Dakin and Merrill. This has been challenging from both a capital and manpower perspective.
Status: Complete
Prescott Remodeling Construction. Phase two of a multi-year project will take place this summer during which we will install new network and voice access.
Status: Complete
Voice and Data. Hampshire continues to see bandwidth demands increase exponentially. We see a doubling of bandwidth required every two years. Our voice contract with our provider expired in September 2011. We have negotiated a new contract and have a chance to increase bandwidth while remaining cost neutral. We have split traffic away from our provider, UMass Amherst, to accomplish this.
- -New ISP roll out: new connection to Paetec via Boston for Data and moving of bandwidth from UMass to Paetec. Status: Complete
- -New Firewall install on Paetec Link. Status : Complete
- -Install new PRI (voice circuits) Status: Complete
- -New Voice contract Status: Complete
- -Research PBX services movement to the Cloud. Status: Open
Admin:
Five College OneCard Project. Hampshire College will lead the Five College OneCard project, providing project management and oversight. The initial phases of this project will focus on identifying existing technological conditions. The group will then identify collaborative possibilities and possible impediments to a Five College OneCard environment.
Status: Open
Launch Technology for Teaching and Learning Department. The digital and technical world as we know it is changing and at a pace that has never been seen before. Cisco’s current Visual Networking Index predicts that the Internet will quadruple in size over the next four years. In fact, the incremental growth in Internet traffic between 2014 and 2015 will be 17.2 exabytes per month. That growth alone is roughly the amount of all global Internet traffic recorded last year.
This tremendous increase in technological and informational advances will create both opportunities and of course many challenges to higher education. We will need to deliver instructional materials to “digital native” students who can’t remember a time when Google didn’t exist. Faculty, staff and students will utilize computing devices that are increasingly becoming smaller and more powerful. Software and applications are moving into the Cloud. The digital world as we know it will be unrecognizable in 5-7 years.
In order to assist with these challenges and take advantage of these opportunities, Hampshire College’s Department of Information Technology is pleased to announce the creation of the Department of Technology for Teaching and Learning. We hope to strengthen the bridge between Hampshire’s academic departments and IT. We will also assist faculty and students in the exploration of innovative approaches to teaching and learning.
Status: Complete
Research PBX services movement to the Cloud. Hampshire’s existing telephone switches are at end of life. We have deployed a new Voice over IP switch and plan to migrate administrative phones to that new platform. Student voice services remain a challenge and we are exploring a possible move to the cloud for service delivery to that population. Dartmouth College has been successful in offering students software-based softphones. Cloud-based software voice services are the next step in this evolution and offer an attractive platform for deployment to remote populations, as well as customers who may not or do not use traditional handsets.
Status: Open
TEDx-Hampshire College. TED – Technology, Entertainment, and Design is as series of talks, presentations and performances designed to promote “Ideas worth spreading.” TED is multifaceted and multidisciplinary. We feel that it is important for the College to promote ideas generated by thought leaders who represent the best that Hampshire and the world have to offer. TEDx is a local version of the world class TED talks. We hosted the first annual TEDx-Hampshire College series in October 2011. IT played a key role in this project.
Status: Complete
Bob C
Hampshire IT has looked into a number of different content management systems, including an upgraded version of RedDot, as a possible replacement and has determined Drupal to be the best option for the following reasons: